Food, Fitness, and Technology

Today I have a bit of a treat for you – CoffeeMuffin’s first guest post! This guest post is from Simone Gribble author of Grrr. Cupcake. (cupcakes for men). As you may know I hate the craze for cupcakes with huge amounts of frosting. Thankfully now Simone has people like me covered with her latest ebook.

The cupcake craze has been raging since the 1990s and hit Edinburgh a few years ago with the opening of a few specialist cupcake bakeries in the city centre. I’ve been baking my own cakes ever since I was a little girl and resisted additive and preservative rich store bought cakes. My icing skills weren’t as good though so when these speciality shops opened, professing to sell handmade cupcakes, I thought I should give them a try, for research purposes, you know.

I bought two. One was a banana caramel cupcake with two inches of icing and a dried banana chip on top. It sure looked pretty. Imagine my disgust when I bit into the cake only to find that the banana and caramel flavour existed only in the icing – the cupcake itself was pretty bland. The second cupcake, whose flavours I don’t even remember, fared no better.

I’ve just started a sewing class, you know to learn how to use a sewing machine and make a skirt. It’s a Sunday night class, because I can’t make the ones during the week, and it turns out these things take concentration.

Sewing in a straight line takes focus and sewing a curve is worse. By the time I leave with a skirt full of unpicking to do… it’s blowing a gale outside, it’s dark and raining. I want something to eat but I know we have nothing in the cupboards.

Then I get into the house, it’s bright and warm, my husband asks me as I enter the front door if I want a hot drink, and suddenly I relax. I know what I am going to make.

Although I am not immune to a little Christmas excitement in late October – I am already thinking about how to ice my Christmas Cake this year and if I can hand make Christmas Decorations to give out as gifts. I feel it is still to early for those heavy Christmas spices, ginger, allspice, cloves etc and you need to ease yourself in gently with some autumnal cinnamon first!

As part of the workout plan it is suggested that you eat clean, which I mostly ignored. It seems to be lots of lean proteins and broccoli 😉 However I did look at some of the recipes out there and a couple appealed, including this Cauliflower rice.

Think of a pizza pocket, but instead of the stringy cheese, you have spiced lentils and sweet potato. The wonderful thing about these pockets is that they don’t need to be reheated, you can just let nature defrost them for you.

I have an apple tree in my garden. It has a special place in my heart because seeing its blossoms in the spring time lift my mood, and remind me that summer is on its way. Secondly, it’s the only thing likely, after many attempts, to bare fruit in my garden this year.

As a disease that has affected both my grandmothers (thankfully both in later life) this research is something that I am particularly interested in. While the research is in its early phases, by eating more foods rich in B vitamins – what is the worst that could happen? It may have no affect on memory, but it’s still good for you!